True faith is rapidly disappearing. What can be done about it? One thing is certain. We will not be able to recover true faith until we first understand what it is and how it must come. According to the Bible, such a faith in Jesus Christ comes by means of preaching. As the great truths of Christ and the Word are presented, there are people who are captured by the Spirit of Christ and they will come to know and confess “that not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.” (HC Q21) Such a confession occurs when people are exposed to the preaching of the Word of God. The preaching of the Word is the divinely- instituted means through which it pleased God, in Christ, to draw sinners to Himself. This is how the Lord finds His own and bestows upon them the gift of true faith (cf. Eph. 2:8). This is how the Lord found me. That is how the Lord found you. To be drawn to Christ, sinners must hear His voice, His own Word to them personally. Nothing less will do unto salvation. The word of man is powerless. Only the Word of God has the power to save, for it alone is “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12) Only God’s Word can bring life to the spiritually dead. For thus the Lord declares: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.”